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“Witnessing Parker Millsap sing for the first time is a jarring experience, because the sights and sounds just don’t seem to match up: the slightly built [Oklahoman] has a bluesy, powerful rasp of a howl that sounds equally suited for juke joints or church tents.”—Rolling Stone

“Gorgeously written, intimate and wise, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House is an astonishing memoir of family, love, and survival. It’s also a history of New Orleans unlike any we’ve seen before, one that should be required reading.” —Jami Attenberg, author of All Grown Up

“What initially drew me to this Raleigh, North Carolina-based quartet is that in addition to the unique mix of bluegrass, folk and Americana tunes they harmonize so beautifully on is the fact that they typically crowd around a single, large, silver radio microphone. And that’s not the band’s only nod to the past.”—Huffington Post

“[Marsalis’s] playing is eccentric within graceful boundaries, concerned with polyrhythm as science, history and gamesmanship, full of technique used to nonslick ends…Discipline and strategy are written deeply into the band.”—New York Times

A special reading and discussion at Ron Robinson Theater featuring Van Jensen and Nate Powell, author and illustrator of Two Dead. Moderating the discussion is OA senior editor and author of Carry the Rock, Jay Jennings.

“I’m always eager to bring my home state to life through comics, and each book doubles as a love letter to Arkansas in all its contradictory beauty.” —Nate Powell

A special reading and discussion at Ron Robinson Theater featuring Silas House, author of Southernmost. Moderating the discussion is OA contributor and editor-in-chief at Sibling Rivalry Press, Seth Pennington.

“An urgent and beautifully written literary thriller about a man on the run that explores themes like the pain of atonement and the necessity of reconciliation, being published at a time when understanding across cultural and political divides seems wider than ever." —Salon.com

"…[Mary Gauthier’s] Rifles and Rosary Beads, is not only one of the most arresting American singer-songwriter records in recent years, but one of the most vital pieces of art to come out of those two wars.” —Rolling Stone Country

A special reading and discussion at Ron Robinson Theater featuring Leesa Cross-Smith, author of So We Can Glow: Stories. Moderating the discussion is OA contributor and author of A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip, Kevin Brockmeier.

“Leesa Cross-Smith is a consummate storyteller who uses her formidable talents to tell the oft-overlooked stories of people living in that great swath of place between the left and right coasts.” —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

“Ranky Tanky proved that exotic music can be both unfamiliar enough to be surprising, and yet familiar enough to provoke swinging hips and nodding heads. When it works, it’s the best of both worlds.”—Paste

“This young musician and composer is at once reestablishing the artistic, cultural, and social tradition of jazz while creating an entirely new jazz language for the 21st century.”—MacArthur Foundation